We got into Montipulciano at night and we have been coming and going while it was dark.  So it has been wonderful to wander around the town of Montipulciano.  There are at least 6 different churches in this relatively small town and we have seen just 2 of them.  The inside of them are spectacular. 

We did lunch at a local cafe and met some very nice people from Toronto and Dallas tx. 

We spent the afternoon wine tasting at Cantina Contucci. We got to meet the famous Adamo. Mostly made famous via Rick Steve’s. You can watch Adamo oin the Rick Steve’s video on Montipulciano.

While at the winery in the barrel room we had a very unusual site. A double Ben sighting … Oh My !!!

Its Tuesday evening and we need to recap and catch  a little on some of the memorable moments over the past 3 days.  Most of Sunday was spent in Assisi.  It is a hill town in the Umbria region of Italy.  The main focus of the town is the basilica (aka church) which focused on St Francis.  Francis was the son of the wealthy family in Assisi.  The family got their wealthy through making cloth and clothing.  Francis preferred the simple life and decided he did not want to live the wealthy life style of his family and demonstrated this by sheading his clothing in the town square and running naked through town and out into the country side where he was greeted by peasants who clothed him (for me this brought back some surpressed memories of high school)..  They gave him scratchy brown cloth to wear.  The scratchy brown cloth reminded Francis constantly what he had done and why he had given up the comfortable cloth for the scratchy brown cloth of the peasants.  That is why monks wear the brown robes that they do today.  Its these kind of stories which make traveling worth it.  The simple living life style has been around for awhile.
It was shortly after that when the day got a little weird.  Older men running around with big white ballons on their head.  Who thought that one up.  Some day we will find out why.
That evening was spent in monticilifino.  A hill town in the Tuscany region just 20 minutes from Montipulciano.  The restaurant was called LA Porta  It is called that because it is located right next to the huge doors which were the entry way into the town way back when.  I suspect the restaurant used to be the gate keeper house or cottage.  The restaurant was recommended to us by Lucca who we rented the apartment from in montipuliciano.  Well the meal was wonderful … The wine was flowing and the credit card took a big hit.  What a wonderful time. 
Monday – Day 9 began our time in Florence.  We got in to Florence a little late because of the late night before.  We spent the evening at the Duomo (church) and then found a restaurant recommended by rick Steve’s.  After another wonderful meal we got back to our flop room (in Florence) for the night and got a good night sleep.  The next day was spent at the Uffizi (art museum in Florence).  The saving grace was that I was able to listen to Rick Steve’s audio take me through the paintings and sculptures.  It made it more interesting and tolerable.  We ate some pizza at a sidewalk cafe and hit the road for home(montipulciano). 

Tomorrow is going to be a catch up day for us.  Although we hate to just sit in the apartment … Sometimes you have to get a break from the gogo.  Also we have laundry to do. 
To sum up.  Italy is wonderful.  The history, people and the Gelato.

Yesterday was a full day of all-things-italian – from traveling around tuscany and umbria taking in the hill towns and vineyards to visiting an amazing basilica  to having a “slow” Italian dinner in a tiny hill town with a view to die for. And then there were those  old guys with the big white  balloons on their heads…

Here’s how the day went:

First we had a quick breakfast at Sax Wine Bar (no we did not have wine with breakfast although  that would not have been a problem for anyone)_. Then we headed out to the town of  Assisi, home to St. Francis. It was one of the places on our must-see -in-IItaly list. We toured the amazing Basilica of St. Francis. We learned a lot about St. Francis of Assisi while taking in this beautiful church = which actually has three churches on three levels. We were all impressed.

Then we walked around Assisi and ran into the most bizarre encounter of the trip yet.  A couple dozen older men all dressed in white with (we kid you not) big white balloons on their heads were walking down  the center of the street (small hill town street) They also had two or three white convertible cars with them and  a couple of loudspeaakers – over which  they played the themes to Star Wars and 2001: A Space odyssey. They eventually marched down the street in a sort of parade, saying something in Italian overr the speakers. We could not understand a thing but it was hilarious, truly. One of them held Flat (actually Creased Benjamin) up so we could snap a picture (see photo).All of thse guys were at least 65 or older and they all seemed to be having a good time. We’re just not sure if there was a point to the whole thing. If you find anything on the Internet that would explain this bizarre occurrence, let us know.

Next we decided to check out a little hilltown near Montepuclaino  (Lucca, whose flat we are renting, had recommendded it  and a restaurant there to us).  We arrived at Montichello around 5:30- and had some wine and bruschetta at La Porta (the restaurant). Dinner was not served until 7:30 so the very kind owner of the restaurant told us  to take a walk around town and then come back and we could have some more wine and appetizers and dinner would be just abvout ready. She didn’t want us to pay for what we’d just eaten/drank until later after dinner (Italians are sooo trusting_).. So we went for a leisurely walk around the beautiful town, met a couple of cats (cats seemed to be very popular in Italy) and wandered  back to the restaurant.We had a sumptuous meal, with more bruschetta, gnocchi, ravioli, citi, white beans and heavenly Fiorentina steak -and, of course, much wine. 🙂

It was a great day…

Saturday … Day 7
We have left France and have arrived in Montipulciano, Italy.  We left Villefranche at 10:30 this morning and stopped in Pisa at 4:30.  Then we arrived in Montipulciano at 7:30.  Lucca met us and lead us to the apartment where we will be hanging out of for the next week.  Lucca is a very colorful character who speaks broken English and very passionate about this part of Italy.  We spent an hour going over places to see and where to eat and drink in the area.  It was dark when we arrived so I am looking forward to seeing the city in the day light.
Our last day in France was spent going to two cities.  Saint-Tropez and Cap Ferrat. Both are on the coast and both are beautiful … But neither really had a lot of history to them.  While they were old towns, I like the old castles and ancient ruins.  Those two cities just didn’t have that kind of history.  Our original destination was Aryie, they have an old colusem,  but it was to far and it was getting late. 

Our big event today was running across Griffy’s Bar Pizza and Beer joint in Pisa.  We couldn’t believe it.  Because of the language barrier we couldn’t figure out who it was named after.  We had coffee and sandwiches before leaving.


Ben had a chance to stop and look out over Villefranche on our way out of town. Unfortunately Ben was not able to make the trip to see the leaning tower of pizza.

We’ve all been pretty tired the past few days. Travel is exhausting – even when all you’re really doing is looking at stuff and eating and drinking (which is 90% of what we’ve been doing). Still it’s exhausting cuz you’re doing all of that while navigating a foreign language, customs, traffic, etc.

But despite the exhaustion, it’s fun and rewarding. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

Scott visited his friend Arthur in Montpellier. He had a great time but he’ll have to expand on that…

Marty and I drove around the hoity toity areas of the French Riviera – St Jean Cap Ferrat and St Tropez. And drank more wine in villefranche.

Today it was time to leave France. Marty drove valiantly among the crazy Italians. Truly it’s miraculous that there aren’t more accidents. At one point there was a dog loose on the freeway (the 100+ mph autostrade). It was bizarre! Traffic was stopped and people were out of their cars trying to corral this poor frightened animal. (Italians are crazy but very kind!)

We stopped in Pisa briefly. Bunny took this selfie accidentally.

Then we found the Griffy bar and had to stop!

Made it to Montepulciano by 8ish. More on that tomorrow…

Scott took off this morn at 9am to catch a train to Montpelier to see his friend Arthur.  Arthur is someone who was a foreign exchange student who stayed with Scotts good friend Chauncey about 3  yes ago.  Bunny and I offered to drive him but he wanted to experience France on his own.  He stayed over night and we expect him back by 7 pm on day 5. 
Today was pick up the car day.  We took the bus into town and got to the rental agency by 11 am.  Once we got the car we wanted to get out of Nice (the big city) as fast as we could.  I wanted to get to the countryside to practice my driving without a lot of traffic.  We spent the day in Antibes having lunch and walking around town.  It is right on the BEAUTIFUL Mediterranean sea.  We got back at 5 pm and spent the rest of the evening drinking wine by the sea.  Nice day …marty

The view from the table …

We could not travel to Europe without Ben. He’s working hard on his doctorate (as much as one can “work hard” in Santa Barbara :). So we brought the next best thing: Flat Benjamin. Here he is sharing a glass of rose with us in our villefranche flat…

on to our travels: We’ve had another lovely day here on the French Riviera. Scott headed out to Montpellier to visit a friend while Marty and I picked up the rental car. (Just one comment here: these people drive like maniacs!!!)

Marty and I then visited Antibes, checked out the Picasso museum (je ne comprends pas!), wandered around and headed back to villefranche.

Here’s a view of Marty the tourist walking the medieval walls around Antibes.

Back to villefranche, drinks on the bay, back to our cozy flat. Bon soir!

Scott and I are now on the same sleeping pattern.  Early to bed and early to rise.  What’s really weird is that we are going to bed before bunny which I don’t think has ever happened before this trip.  Anyway it was 6 am and scott asks me if I want to go for a walk.  I had been looking at the map already for the nearest large grocery store for provisions that the local market doesn’t carry.  So I suggested we just go to the nearest Carrefore (the French Fred Meyers).  They open at 8:30 and its about a 50 minute walk.  So we get ready to and leave at 7:30.  We are following the direction from Google maps on my tablet.  We get about 15 mins into our journey and I am now realizing that what was not showing up on Google maps was the terrain.  We are proceeding to c!imb the steep hill behind where we are staying and then going down the other side.  So while the distance to the store was only 1.4 miles it was also about a 1500 ft elevation gain and then down the other side.  We did finally get to the Carrefour and get our groceries.  It was great exercise and we got to see a lot of the town.  The views from the top are spectacular.  We took the bus home.

What a day! First, Marty and Scott took a long walk to the grocery store

Then it was time for Villefranche’s annual “crazy parade with dancing ladies followed by throwing flowers from boats” festival (we’re still not exactly sure what they were celebrating – but it was FUN!!!).

Marty did some research: The event is called “Naval battle of Flowers” and it was suppose to take place on the day when we were just landing in Nice, but it was postponed to today due to the bad weather on Monday. Seems the origin of this event has something to do with seamen, flowers and women. Probably similar to how our rose festival and naval ships got started.

We sat at a sidewalk cafe for the parade, then stood by the water and caught flowers with all of the locals. Surreal but such a good time…

After that we took the train to Monaco to see the palace, the yachts and the casino where we lost some euros and saw lots of expensive cars!

We woke to overcast sky’s but no rain.  Went to “breakfast” at a little spot right on the bay with a great view.  Then we were off to catch a bus into Nice for Carnival.  We got into town about 2 pm and after plenty of walking around Nice we found our way to carnival.  It was fun.  Lots of floats and people with large masks on along with music and dancing.  We watched for a couple of hours and then decided we needed to sit down and eat and drink.  The weather had cleared up and there were some sun breaks so we found an outside table and drink wine and ate. It was Nice.  We all still needed to catch up from the traveling.  Got back to the place and all went right to bed.  The coolest thing about the parade was this mechanical dragon.  It was amazing … See below ..